Memories of the Bureau, 1946 to 1962
Foreword
Terminology
Prologue
Preface
Chapter 1: The Warren Years, 1946 to 1950
Warren the Man
Warren Joins the Bureau
Wartime Perceptions and Attitudes
Return to Civvy Street
Frosterley
People in the Bureau
Re-establishing and Reorganising the Bureau
Reorganisation of Central Office
The Position of Chief Scientific Officer
Post-War Reorganisation
The Haldane Story
Public Weather Services
The New South Wales Divisional Office
The Victorian Divisional Office
The Queensland Divisional Office
The South Australian Divisional Office
The Western Australian Divisional Office
The Tasmanian Divisional Office
Pre-war Services for Civil Aviation
Post-War Meteorological Service for Aviation
Indian Ocean Survey Flight
The Aviation Field Staff
Synoptic Analysis, Prognosis and Forecasting
Antarctic and Southern Ocean Meteorology
A Wider Scientific Horizon
Research, Development and Special Investigations
Analysts' Conference, April 1950
Instruments and Observations
Radiosondes
Radar Winds and Radar Weather Watch
Telecommunications
Climate and Statistics
Training
Publications
CSIRO
The Universities
Achievements of the Warren Years
Chapter 2: International Meteorology
Chapter 3: The Timcke Years, 1950 to 1955
Chapter 4: A Year at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Chapter 5: The Dwyer Years, 1955 to 1962
Chapter 6: A Springboard for the Future
Appendix 1: References
Appendix 2: Reports, Papers, Manuscripts
Appendix 3: Milestones
Appendix 4: Acknowledgements
Appendix 5: Summary by H. N. Warren of the Operation of the Meteorological Section of Allied Air Headquarters, Brisbane, 1942–45
Endnotes
Index
Search
Help
Contact us
The Universities (continued)
His love of mountaineering and fascination for flight, by balloons and the then novel flying machines, led him to develop a deep interest in meteorology and in 1925 he became the first head of the Research Flight of the Prussian Meteorological Service. In the following three years he made more than 500 flights, many ascending (without oxygen) to considerable altitudes. He was involved in various meteorological expeditions in the Swiss Alps, on the ship Meteor and made airborne meteorological measurements in Anatolia and Iran.Loewe made his first visit to Greenland in 1929, being inspired by Alfred Wegener, in whose home Loewe had lived and who had fired Fritz's imagination for scientific adventures. Loewe joined Wegener's 1930–31 Greenland expedition during which the party was the first to spend the winter on the ice-cap in central Greenland. During that time Loewe's frost-bitten toes were amputated with a home-made surgical instrument and Wegener lost his life when the party was returning on foot to the coast.
Harassment and a spell in a concentration camp was the Nazi reward for the World War I Jewish hero, Loewe, but he was fortunate that he and his family were allowed to flee Germany in 1934 and take up residence in the UK at Cambridge. He worked on polar meteorology at the Scott Polar Research Institute until 1937.
I am indebted to Professor Peter Schwerdtfeger of the Flinders University of South Australia, Adelaide, for providing his obituary on Loewe in the Journal of Glaciology (14:79, 1975) on which the above notes are based.
In his reminiscences Radok (1993) provides a useful summary of the history of the Meteorological Section of the University of Melbourne. As explained by Gibbs (1982) the losses of aircraft such as the Southern Cloud persuaded the Prime Minister to ask a British aviation expert, H. E. Wimperis, to visit Australia to suggest action which might be taken to improve aviation safety. The Wimperis report of 1937 recommended action to improve aeronautical research and meteorological services.
Gibbs (1982) and Gardner (1997) also describe the report by Sir George Simpson, Head of the UK Meteorological Office, who in 1938 had been invited by Sir David Rivett to visit Australia to discuss meteorological research. On his arrival in Australia he was invited by McEwan, Minister for the Interior, to provide a report on meteorological training and research. Simpson's report suggested that the university would be the best site for basic research, which I imagine did not please Sir David Rivett. Sir George Simpson's successors, Sir Nelson Johnson, Sir Graham Sutton and Sir John Mason, did not share his views and developed strong training and research units within the UK Meteorological Office.
People in Bright Sparcs - Loewe, Fritz; Warren, Herbert Norman; Wimperis, H. E.
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